Better air for better health: Forging synergies in policies for energy access,climate change and air pollution

Air pollution and its related health impacts are a global concern. This paper addresses how current policies on air pollution, climate change and access to clean cooking fuels can effectively reduce both outdoor and household air pollution and improve human health. A state of the art modeling framework is used that combines an integrated assessment model and an atmospheric model to estimate the spatial extent and distribution of outdoor air pollution exposures. Estimates of household energy access and use are modeled by accounting for heterogeneous household energy choices and affordability constraints for rural and urban populations spanning the entire income distribution. Results are presented for 2030 for a set of policy scenarios on air pollution, climate change and energy access and include spatially explicit emissions of air pollutants; ambient concentrations of PM2.5; and health impacts in terms of disability adjusted life years (DALYs) from both ambient and household air pollution. The results stress the importance of enforcing current worldwide air quality legislation in addressing the impacts of outdoor air pollution. A combination of stringent policies on outdoor air pollution, climate change and access to clean cooking fuels is found to be effective in achieving reductions in average ambient PM2.5 exposures to below World Health Organization recommended levels for a majority of the world's population and results in a significant decline in the global burden of disease from both outdoor and household air pollution.     

Analytical solutions for Euler–Bernoulli beam on visco‐elastic foundation subjected to moving load

Analytical solutions for the steady‐state response of an infinite beam resting on a visco‐elastic foundation and subjected to a concentrated load moving with a constant velocity are developed in this paper. The beam responses investigated are deflection, bending moment, shear force and contact pressure. The mechanical resistance of the foundation is modeled using two parameters k_s and t_s — k_s accounts for soil resistance due to compressive strains in the soil and t_s accounts for the resistance due to shear strains. Since this model represents the ground behavior more accurately than the Winkler spring model, the developed solutions produce beam responses that are closer to reality than those obtained using the existing solutions for Winkler model. The dynamic beam responses depend on the damping present in the system and on the velocity of the moving load. Based on the study, dynamic amplification curves are developed for beam deflection. Such amplification curves for deflection, bending moment, shear force and contact pressure can be developed for any beam‐foundation system and can be used in design. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Occurrence of thorite and radioactive zircon in syenite pegmatite,North of Ashwaraopet,Khammam district,Andhra Pradesh,India

This paper reports the occurrence of thorite and confirms the earlier find of radioactive zircon by Subbarao, Murali and others from syenite pegmatite in the Vinayakapuram-Kunavaram alkaline belt in the Khammam district of Andhra Pradesh, India. Thorite has also been found as residual concentrations in soil overlying the pegmatite.     

地热异常的水槽模型实验

作为地球物理场的一个分支,地温场在理论和应用研究方面与其它地球物理场一样,也主要是依靠数学方法和物理模型实验的方法来进行的。本文讨论了地热异常水槽模型实验的理论原理;介绍了实验方法技术、实验结果和实际应用效果。     

Random-walk model studies of the transport and diffusion of pollutants in katabatic flows

The flow and turbulence quantities governing dispersion in katabatic flows vary with both height and downslope distance. This variation cannot be accounted for in conventional plume dispersion models. In this study, three random-walk models of varying complexity are formulated to simulate dispersion in katabatic flows, and their strengths and weaknesses are discussed. The flow and turbulence parameters required by these models are determined from a high-resolution two-dimensional katabatic flow model based on a turbulent kinetic energy closure. Random-walk model calculations have been performed for several values of source height and slope angle to examine the influence of these parameters on dispersion. Finally, we simulated the perfluorocarbon and heavy methane tracer releases for Night 4 of the 1980 ASCOT field study over a nearly two-dimensional slope in Anderson Creek Valley, California. The observed peak concentrations are generally well-predicted. The effects of the pooling of the drainage air could not be taken into account in our katabatic flow model and, consequently, the predicted concentrations decay much more rapidly with time than the observed values.     

On the crosscorrelation between drought indices and solar activity

Summary Crosscorrelation structure between solar activity and drought indices is investigated by analyzing the cross correlation of the residual time series of solar activity and drought indices. Double Sunspot Cycle, Zürich Sunspot number, Palmer's Drought Index and Drought Area Index data are used in the study. White residual series derived from the observed data series by using valid time series models are used for the crosscorrelation analysis. Weak correlations between solar activity and drought area indices are inferred. The lags of significant correlation appear to vary for the different time series used in the study.With 3 Figures     

地球化学计算中误差传递分析的应用

 通过两个实例讨论了地球化学计算中的误差传递问题,对照了四种不同方法的潜力和限制,拓广了蒙特卡洛方法在相关变量分析中的应用,指出其在不同条件下总能用有限机时逼近合理结果,揭示出协方差矩阵法的特殊效益,可相对于独立初始变量展现中间变量的相关关系。     

Applications of Error Propagation Analyses to Geochemical Calculation

Two examples are given for comparing applications and limitations of four methods which can be used to deal with error propagation in geochemical calculations.The examples indicate that the Monte Carlo method can also be employed to evaluate the effect of covariance.A special function of the method for covariance matrix shown here can reveal the correlations of middle variables relative to the independent primary variables.